Sylvia, who lost to Mercer in an MMA bout after the Association of Boxing Commissions nixed plans for a boxing exhibition at the Mississippi event, had been slated to fight Paul Buentello in an Affliction pay-per-view main-card bout.

According to the report, Affliction Entertainment Vice President Tom Atencio solely made the decision and didn’t bother to contact the California State Athletic Commission, which would have needed to approve the fight. “Affliction: Trilogy” takes place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.

“It’s his second knockout in a row, and I don’t want to take a chance on anything,” Atencio told FanHouse. “The fight is less than 60 days away.”

(Video of the Sylvia-Mercer fight can be found below.)

According to the report, Atencio said Buentello could instead face the winner of a June 27 “Ultimate Chaos” fight between Affliction heavyweights Pedro Rizzo and Gilbert Yvel.

Being pulled from the Affliction card will likely cost Sylvia a solid payday. In his only other Affliction fight, he earned $800,000 in a main-event loss to Fedor Emelianenko at “Banned” in July 2008.

A total of 26 fighters got their chance to shine on Saturday as part of UFC 190 at Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena. Now that UFC 190 is in the books, it’s time to commence MMAjunkie’s “Three Stars” ceremony.

The man known for cranking submissions to the point of injury added eye-gouging to his repertoire. But is the controversy of Rousimar Palhares too essential to his bizarre, awful appeal for his employers to take any meaningful action against him?